176 FRANK UEKÖTTER
German environmentalism is changing, and many certainties of recent
decades have come into question. The move toward renewable energy is
happening, but it is also beset by uncertainties. Environmental organi-
zations are changing, while the Green Party faces a rocky farewell of the
founding generation. Environmental awareness among average Germans
seems to be somewhat ambivalent at a time when they fl y long distances
to eco-resorts in order to eat organic food. There is no green happy end-
ing of history in sight, and environmental sustainability lingers as an elu-
sive goal. Environmental historians have little trouble with the notorious
lopsidedness of intra-German comparisons, where the West thrives while
the East fails. In terms of environmental sustainability, we have a GDR
that failed in spectacular fashion and an FRG that failed in unspectacular
fashion.
In other words, contemporary environmental history off ers a number
of loose ends. We are unsure about many dangers that we face and about
the future of environmental policy. We are even unsure about the terms
and concepts that we use in order to assess success and failure. Do recent
decades mark the fi nal stage of the age of fossil fuels? Or do we currently
witness the beginnings of a radicalization of fossil fuel use, whose har-
bingers show in countries like Iraq and Nigeria? Will future historians
primarily deplore our collective failure in terms of climate policy? Or will
it be the horrible fate of animals in factory farms that makes them blush
in shame? Perhaps they will praise the rise of politics and civil society —
even though it was borne by sated affl uent citizens—for opening the
doors to a century that had to be environmental for lack of a choice? Or
will future historians fi nd it all terribly superfi cial? For the time being,
historians will not be able to embrace one of these narratives with full
confi dence. The one certainty is that, no matter how the history of our
times will be written one day, narratives will need to account for the envi-
ronment. No history of late-twentieth century Germany will be complete
without a good dose of green.
Frank Uekötter is reader in environmental humanities at the University
of Birmingham (U.K.). His books include The Green and the Brown: A
History of Conservation in Nazi Germany (2006), The Age of Smoke: En-
vironmental Policy in Germany and the United States, 1880–1970 (2009),
The Greenest Nation? A New History of German Environmentalism (2014),
and, as editor, Exploring Apocalyptica: Coming to Terms with Environmen-
tal Alarmism (2018). He is currently working on an environmental history
of the modern world.